Legends have it that one of the most searched queries on an event marketer’s phone is how to get sponsors for an event.
We get it.
Finding sponsors for your event is similar to finding a needle in a haystack—not impossible enough to give up. Some of your proposals will get rejected, while a third party might never see others. For event marketers, getting a response from their ideal sponsors is a significant headache.
Thankfully, we have jotted down some of the best ways to find sponsors for your next event. But before we give away the tips, we want you to cover some basics. Let’s take a look.
What Is Event Sponsorship?
Event sponsorship is when a brand financially supports an event in exchange for something of value. This value could be brand exposure, monetary partnerships, access to attendees’ data, or more. Sponsorship is vital in events as it helps event marketers and organizers access resources and expertise.
Does Your Event Need a Sponsor?
For many events, sponsorship is the key to marketing. Apart from raising funds for the event, having one or more event sponsors can open up opportunities for building awareness, improving brand image, and more. You should seek an event sponsorship if your event needs to fit any criteria.
How to Find Sponsors for an Event
Here are some tips for how to find sponsors for an event. Take a look.
Identify your event goal: Before you finalize a sponsor, you need to know your budgetary and logistical objectives.
Contact Sponsors from the related events: Make sure you are not seeking sponsorship from a niche that is not related to yours.
Agreeing on relevant sponsors: Raising funds for your events is tempting. However, agreeing with the wrong sponsors might affect the event’s atmosphere and brand value.
This helps you make your pitch even more effective.
Narrow down your list: Event pitches and meetings are time-consuming. Therefore, as an event marketer, you should handpick the targets and people to meet your goals.
Learn How to Get Sponsors for an Event With These Tactics
Here are a few tactics you need to know to get sponsors for your event.
1. Give your Proposal the Wow Factor.
An event sponsorship proposal is a pitch you present to businesses to persuade investors to support your event financially or through other contributions. You may be tempted to write the event description and send it to many sponsors, hoping for a response. However, generic event sponsorship outreach hardly has a smooth landing.
Instead of shooting in the dark, take a more personalized approach. For example, start by analyzing what type of sponsors align with your event values. Rather than asking for monetary compensation, align a partnership opportunity for them.
2. Offer The Sponsor Incentives
Gaining sponsorship for your event can be a balanced deal. One party pleads for money, and the other has to decide. When you reach out to your ideal sponsor, you need to sweeten your deal with some incentives.
For example, consider offering free booths at trade shows and exhibitions. You can also put the sponsor’s logo on promotional material or feature them in your newsletter, blogs, social media handles, and more.
This incentive makes you sound more appealing and mutually beneficial, increasing your likelihood of securing a sponsor for your event.
3. Offer a Minimum-risk Solution
Consider small-scale events and collaboration with micro-influencers to minimize the risk. This allows the brands to test the water and gauge audience response without spending much. By building trust and authenticity with a smaller audience, brands can gradually expand their menial reach to their image.
4. Form a partnership with more established companies
Partnering with reestablished brands can enhance your credibility and brand recognition, especially if your brand is relatively new and needs more visibility. This can help you gain success by reaching a more comprehensive range of audiences and resources that may not have been available otherwise.
5. Study What Your Potential Sponsors Are Up To
It’s important to study potential sponsors before reaching out to them. You can tailor your proposal to their needs and interests by doing homework on each sponsor. Check their events, company changes, and product launches to understand their priorities. This will also help you make them understand how your event aligns with their goals.
6. Use Data To Make Investors Feel Confident
Remember to use event data to make a compelling case for ROI. Sharing past event performance metrics like revenue, attendance, and social media engagement can help you showcase the value you provide through your events.
7. Use SnapUp (Scan & Upload)
One of the best ways to make your event a unique hit, and among the eyes of potential sponsors, is to maximize its impact. You can also utilize social walls during your event. On that note, Social Walls has this incredible feature called SnapUp.
It is a great way to involve your attendees and increase the impact of your event. This lets the attendees upload their content related to the event with just a simple QR code. This helps the attendees engage throughout the event and makes your event superhit!
8. Get the Timing Right
Timing is everything when it comes to getting your events right. Start early with your event planning. More importantly, respect your sponsors’ time. Make your pitch around the high sales months, as this will demonstrate their business needs and can increase the likelihood of securing a sponsor for your event.
9. Find the best people to contact
While pitching for the events, ensure you reach out to the right people. Remember to target brand managers or individuals responsible for budgeting rather than prominent sponsorship managers. If possible, start by making initial connections within your existing network. This approach will help you achieve good relations with your sponsors.
How Taggbox can help you get sponsors for your event
Taggbox helps event marketers maximize the impact of their events and attract more sponsors for your event. How, you may ask. Let us explain. This tool helps you aggregate content from social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and more and showcase them during events. Using all this content, event marketers create a highly engaged event that attracts the sponsor to fund the event.
Not only that, event marketers can also highlight their existing sponsors with the Tagbox banner features. This will help you attract more potential sponsors for your next event.
A simple social wall banner feature helps the brands get better visibility.
The other feature of Tagbox is its customization feature, which allows you to change the themes and layouts of your social wall easily. You can also utilize their custom CSS feature to give your event a more personalized look. This setup would help you come off as a professional event marketer.
There is no limit to where you can display your social walls using Tagbox. From screens at live events to digital signage or out-of-home displays, Tagbox has got you covered.
Other features, like SnapUp, can help you collect more content from the event attendees for your event wall via a simple QR code. The Studio feature by Tagbox allows you to add extra entertainment to your wall. For example, you can add a timer to your wall to build anticipation for the event.
Conclusion
With the above tips and answers, we are sure you now have the answers to questions like how to get a sponsor for an event and how to attract sponsors.
Personalizing your sponsorship pitch can help you reach out to more potential sponsors. Meanwhile, as you better understand your potential sponsors throughout the year, you can shape your pitch to increase the likelihood of getting funds.
So what are you waiting for? We have included all the information needed to get sponsorship for your event. Go ahead, reach out to sponsors, and easily maintain your sponsorship.
